WEBVTT - Tom Welsh 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.800 My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:08.600 is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:15.080 brings them happiness. Here's my old friend Tom Welsh. He's 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.640 a music aficionado. He runs one of the biggest music 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:24.960 festivals in America, Big Years in Knoxville, Tennessee. Enjoy. 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:30.040 All right, So Tom, you have never taken accid? 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:32.920 That is true. I have never taken ascid. 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.519 What powerful drugs have you taked? Do you have you 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.360 taken any powerful drugs? Because I feel like someone who's 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:42.080 involved in a music festivals, because I should should probably 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.760 have a past with exotic hallucigens. 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:51.600 It's not on my CV. But you're you're generally probably correct, 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:55.040 right as sort of an understanding or assumption, right, a 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.000 passage like, look at all these guys that are in 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.480 this work, they've been drop an acid for you, whatever 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.520 that sort of thing is. But no, I from my 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:05.800 California days maybe look the part. 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.040 But yeah, when I first met you had very long hair. 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:10.959 I did that to blend in if you live in 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.000 San Francisco at a certain age a certain time and 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:17.199 just sort of become part of the fabric with guys 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:18.280 walking around with long hair. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.600 I just felt you have lost You had long hair 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.480 kind of the same time Metallica had long hair. And 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.800 then did you get the cut the same time as Metallica. 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:26.920 Got the cut. 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.360 I'd have to check when they went to the barbershop. 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:32.520 But I have a vivid memory that you and I 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:34.720 had not seen each other period of time. Somewhere in there, 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.080 I shaved my head and we saw each other again 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.560 at an event, and you first thing out of your 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:45.200 mouth was new Metallica. I was flattered, confused, but honored 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:45.400 by that. 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:46.520 Yeah. I don't know who did it. 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:48.600 It was a compliment. It was a compliment. 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:49.320 Let's just say. 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:51.440 I don't know the Metallica guys, but they needed to 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:53.000 do it, and I needed to do it too. 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:54.960 Yeah, I think it was time. That comes time in 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.680 life for a haircut. So listen, tell me this. You 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.880 do have faced well. The podcast is about joy. I've 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:04.080 known you for some time, and one of the most 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:08.720 joyful experiences that I think we had together was going 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.640 to see a gentleman by the name of Iggy Pop. 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.200 Remembers going to see Iggy Pop. I do all right, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:15.400 And we went to see. 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:19.200 Iggy and I loved watching because I liked the songs, 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:23.560 and I liked seeing Iggy being alive after his story 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.839 and as of recording to this, he's still alive, which 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.639 is kind of goes wrong. Well, it's it's an interesting 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.080 thing given the kind of the group of people he 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.640 was running with back in the day. Because you're so 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:36.320 heavily and I think of you as being someone who's 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:37.320 heavily involved in music. 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:38.519 But you're not a musician, aren't you. 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:40.360 Well, I came up as a musician. 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.760 Okay, tell me how that happened. 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.760 The imagine we're a psychotherapy session and it's the first session, 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:48.720 and you have to go through all the boring stuff 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.680 about who you are and how you got to this point, 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:53.320 and then we can get to the bit where you 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:53.880 can't go to. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:55.440 The bathroom without wearing a hat. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.680 Yeah, let us be my first psychotherapy session because you've 0:02:58.680 --> 0:02:59.040 never been. 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:00.480 No, I think this is it. 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.120 Okay, Well, just relax, take a say breath. You're in 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.440 a safe place, and tell me how it began with 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:09.079 you in music. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.960 Probably, like many many kids growing up in America and 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.400 maybe in the suburbs, you are invited at a certain 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.919 age to sign up to take music lessons in your school. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:20.880 Where was this? 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:25.040 I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and it's probably the 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:27.720 I was about to say second grade, but it might 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.280 be fourth grade where they take you into assembly and 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.760 they pass out the sheet of instruments that you might 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.560 select from to begin music lessons. Fourth grade, let's say, 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:39.839 And everybody went home with this eight and a half 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.520 by eleven. No, it's but the larger sheet with a 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:45.960 to z all the instruments you could choose that the 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:46.960 school offered. 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.680 Like a very well equipped school. Was that very well? 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.120 We're talking about the seventies, right when music was still 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:52.720 in the schools. 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:54.720 Active music there now, right. 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:56.240 And people encouraged this. 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.480 This is good for everybody, good for students, good for kids, band, 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:01.760 all this sort of stuff, marching bands and the rest. 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:03.240 And I went home and immediately said I want to 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.760 play the drums, and my father said pick something else. 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.520 So I went back with the sheet into the teacher, 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:12.520 whoever it was at the time, and I had checked 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.280 the box for saxophone. So I grew up as a 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.040 saxophone player. I was in a family with three brothers 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:21.400 and a sister. All of us played music together. Parents 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.000 musical people too, not professionally, But there was music in 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:25.080 the house all the time. 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.279 Was it a very stable environment? Did you have a 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.600 stable upbringing? It was like an escape into music from 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.200 the you know, the disruption of a wild family life 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:34.920 or anything like that. 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.960 These stories will wreck and bore and ruin all of 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.400 your understandings of a life and music. But yes, it 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.080 was a stable family that cared about each other. Still 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.200 to this day, we care about each other and communicate. 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.640 There was music in the household because it brought joy 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.839 and fun and something to do. The Christmas Carols was 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.440 the big the brass. Everybody lined up with their brass 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.119 instruments to blow the Christmas carouse out the front door 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.320 into the neighborhood that may or may not have wished 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.680 for that to happen. And it was just the rhythm 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.360 of a noisy family that you. 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:07.320 Still play, You still play the saxophone. 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.000 Well, the last vestiges of this are really still the 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:12.040 Christmas Holidays. 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:12.480 With this. 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.640 Year, the honkas squeak brass corral emerges once a year 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:22.600 and then submerges again. There's another generation of kids, the grandkids, 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.279 nephews and nieces that also picked this up. And so yeah, 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.680 it's a musical family that is not professionally musical, all. 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.240 Right, So life takes its course and you end up. 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.479 When I met you, you were in San Francisco, that's right. 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.280 At that point, you were running or managing bands, and 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:37.880 you had. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.120 A music store. It wasn't really a store. 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.520 I had moved to California with the band actually to 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:46.599 chase the American dream, which everybody knows is write one 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:50.320 song and then become super famous and you're off to forever. 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:52.640 And these days I think it's just an Instagram post, 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:53.960 but it's much the same thing. 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:55.800 This was the olden days when you actually had to 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.000 have talent, have some talent, and record something with people 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:01.960 who knew what they were doing. So we tough that 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.120 out for a period of time in the club scene 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.719 in the West Coast, network up and down, and decided 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:09.800 after a long run that we really weren't getting along 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:11.080 at all with each other and it was time to 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:11.760 stop that. 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:13.320 So that's my experience of being in a band. 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:13.560 Too. 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.000 Inevitably, you've come to that crossroads that maybe I should 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:18.960 be doing something else. What I really wanted to do 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.159 was to run a record company. I really love the 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.120 idea of working with musicians, not necessarily being the guy 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:27.000 in the middle of the stage jumping around, but to 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.560 help others get their work moving, get their No. 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:35.279 That's an interesting thing. Why is that from the family background? 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.839 Do you think that they create and the opportunity for 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.799 little Tom to choose the drums or the saxophone. 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:44.600 No, I don't think so. 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:49.120 I think in a very small way, as a musician 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.480 and working in a band and trying to make something happen, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:53.600 we never really went anywhere, but you get a feeling 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:55.320 of what's like to be on the stage, to have 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.080 a room full of people looking at you and waiting 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.159 for you to do. I don't need to tell you 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.000 you know exactly what this is, right. The exchange between 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:09.080 audience and performer is a very peculiar human moment. In 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.640 my opinion. Very few people probably want to do that, 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:16.280 and even fewers still do it well. And I think ultimately, 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.080 as a performer, musician, artist, you have to know for 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.600 yourself what am I doing here on this stage, What 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:24.400 is it I'm trying to put across. What do I 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.960 want to share with people? What I want people to 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:28.920 hear hear me say? Because after all, I've had a 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.000 room full of people who are now looking at you saying, 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.280 all right, we've given you our time and attention and 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:34.240 maybe five bucks. 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:35.720 Say it, do it? 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.960 Did you have anything particularly that you wanted to say? 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:39.760 Yeah? 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.920 I think at the time, as young musicians trying to 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:48.480 express fun, happiness, some great songs and have a yeah, 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:50.400 I have a damn good time. It starts there, doesn't 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:50.680 it with. 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:51.280 I think so? 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:53.160 I mean, I think when I was in Bines, I 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.480 think I was trying to say, was I'm available for 0:07:55.640 --> 0:08:00.200 casual sex? This is bathed in there, definitely, But I 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.400 don't think that's the way you said. I think nowadays 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.560 i'd be on an app or something and just say it. 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.320 The menu of things, like I'm available for that, barring 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.240 that I'll take all the drugs you're offering me, yes, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.040 barring that I'll dip into the advance so we can 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.600 spend it on beer money right now, yes, barring that 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:16.480 I need a ride home. 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.200 All right, So you end up running this record company? 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:19.960 Yes? 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.040 Well right, okay, So we skipped a brief chapter there. 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.840 When it turned out that music as a performer was 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.160 not ultimately going to be my direction and calling, I thought, 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:30.920 what I really want to do is work with other people, 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:35.080 and I fall into literally fall into a small active 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:37.160 record company in San Francisco at the time called New 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:42.400 Albion Records, which had been going for some time charting 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.959 trends and developments in modern composition and experimental classical music. 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:48.920 This kind of in between area with very much of 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.720 a West Coast and Pacific rim point of view. What 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.559 we're talking about is music of the twentieth century, including 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.840 people like Lou Harris and Terry Riley, Pauline Olaverro's, John Adams, 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.160 John Cage, and then onward from there Carlstone and many others. 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:08.120 This had a huge impact on me musically, personally, professionally, ultimately, 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:09.000 and it. 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.280 Is not the music you still listen to now that 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.880 makes music you listen because it also is quite almost 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:17.480 I don't want to be mean, but it sounds a 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:19.839 little academic taste of music. 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.600 Mean, I mean it to be mean, but it. 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.720 Is very grown up and deep cut that that type 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:28.160 of music. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.600 Do you listen to abba or yes? 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:31.320 Not good? 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:35.040 The new record really didn't move me the way I 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.800 hoped to be moved. But then again, it's hard to 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:42.920 sugar mil forever. You can try, as we might yeah, 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.320 the short answer to a good question, you're in a 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:50.160 common misconception, or there are no misconceptions in music. Everybody 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.640 hears and understands and enjoys or doesn't enjoy it to 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:58.280 their own taste. This is all out there for everybody's consumption, delectation, 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.760 and and and take what you you can from it. 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.560 But I came to believe, working in the area of 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:09.960 modern composition, experimental fringes of electronic, improvised and beyond, these 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.560 are all artists, perhaps living outside of the mainstream, but 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.520 all of them are true and honest to the thing 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.560 that they're trying to do. Nobody's trying to be academic 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.880 or thumb in your eye on purpose in any way. 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:28.640 These are people just expressing themselves quite differently that, as 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.599 it happens, have maybe smaller audiences because this is rarefied, 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.640 sometimes unusual, sometimes difficult to understand because the frame of 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.360 reference is a little obscure or whatever it is. But 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:39.800 I don't think for a second that any of those 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.640 artists or any other artists are willfully trying to stay 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:45.320 outside of your purview. 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:47.360 Take a while to get there. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.800 Right, Well, So let's think that now you run, you're 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.760 the managing director of this giant music festival, which is 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:55.000 one of the biggest in the world. 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.120 Right, yeah, so you're flattering to say so, but that's 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.720 maybe not quite right. I'm here with you in Knoxville, Tennessee, 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.760 in the home of Big Years, which as a festival 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:07.079 that has been going for this will be the tenth 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.520 edition that happens in March of twenty twenty three. 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.040 But I'm not being It's not hyperbolic really. I mean, 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:13.360 it is a huge festival. 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.320 It has had an enormous and beautiful impact in I 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.240 think the American landscape of music festivals and culture. Is 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.240 it huge, probably one hundred and twenty five artists playing 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:28.520 over four days in downtown Knoxville. It's intense. It's it's 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.439 a rapturous deep dive into everything, all sorts of things 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:32.520 all at one time. 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:34.319 And see, that's what I wanted to talk to you 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:34.640 about it. 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.959 So do you have a a polpulist thought in your 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.920 head when you're booking acts? So, I mean, presumably you're 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:43.599 involved in the choosing of who's going to play and 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.920 who's not going to play. And do you say, well, look, 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:50.040 we've already got five guys who are five different acts 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:56.040 who are playing obscure saxophone mathematic compositions. Do we have 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.920 anyone who's you know, doing covers of Partryes, Family or 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:02.320 whatever people are listening to it? 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.120 You know, A quick check suggests me, we don't have 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:07.520 that artist locked in just yet, but maybe I can 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.840 lean on you about that. Yes or no, there's no 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:17.240 calculation beyond let's just find and invite really great musicians 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.920 without necessarily thinking first of the area or the genre 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:24.400 or the old record bins as we used to say 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:27.400 that they're in. What's interesting about Big Ears and unique 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.720 about Big Ears, in my opinion, is that it's the 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.760 only festival that I can think of in the US, 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.760 or certainly the first that wanted to be about just 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:42.600 great music made by passionate, great people, regardless of genres. Typically, 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:44.880 you and I would go to this festival that does 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.079 this certain thing, or go off to another one that 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.520 does a different certain thing, and the outcome of that 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:50.959 is you have a good idea of what you're getting 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.360 yourself into, you know, perhaps because you bought tickets, because 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:55.920 you know all of the artists are playing in that 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.480 festival where there's bluegrass, class school, heavy metal, whatever. But 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.600 big Ears is putting all of us in the same 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:03.760 place at the same time, so that you can move 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:08.280 freely between one world of sound and another. And it's 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:13.400 just all just great. As Ellington Tokellington said, beyond category, 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:15.800 why can't we have all of those things in one 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:16.720 place at one time. 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.679 So let's zero in a little bit more on the 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.040 personal nature of what brings you joy and that so 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:34.400 clearly you get joy sharing different musical experiences with other people, 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.480 all right, So that brings you joy professionally, all right. 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:42.760 So in your life, for example, obviously everyone has a 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:47.200 point where there is an absence of joy, and then 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.760 there has to be, hopefully, at some point, a journey 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.240 through joy. Because I feel that joy is an essential 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.040 coping mechanism and that if you lack it, you can 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.840 or if you like the ability to manufacture it, it 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.280 can lead you into a dark path. That's certainly happened 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.640 in my life. Is that something that's happened in yours? 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:07.439 In your world? 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.920 It's interesting you refer to joy as a coping mechanism. 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:12.640 I'd like to hear more about that. I don't see 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.800 it that way. I don't think I'm trying to think 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.960 of my own personal experiences of joy when it comes 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.960 to me in a variety of different moments, sometimes unpredictable, 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.680 mostly unpredictable. Let's say, or I share it or try 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:28.720 to generate it so that other people can have it 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.760 in the context of music performances, festivals, and even simple 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.560 as sharing records. This thing we used to do a lot. Yeah, 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:37.480 but why is it a coping mechanism? 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:39.800 I think when I say a coping mechanism is because 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:44.440 I'm aware of having to manufacture it when I have to, 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.000 as opposed to I suppose when I don't have to, 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.160 when I'm experiencing joy and don't and I'm not in 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.040 need of it, I'm not aware of having to make it. 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:57.760 I think I suppose, so at that point I think 0:14:57.760 --> 0:14:59.239 maybe it's a coping mechanism. 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.280 This is think to me because I maybe I don't 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.000 think of it quite this way. I'm thinking of examples 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:09.240 where or instances where joy comes, it arrives, and for me, 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.600 this is a Yeah. It's a powerful emotional and physical sensation. 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:18.720 It's like a wave that arrives. I didn't summon it exactly. 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.520 I didn't, so you have no power over it. Rolls 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:22.200 in like the weather. 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:22.920 Is that what you mean? 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.840 Sometimes in circumstances, I'm thinking of a concert experience where 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:31.240 the room, the sound, the energy, the people all converges 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.440 in a moment where suddenly you're levitating and you're thinking, Wow, 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.800 I'm being swept up into something that I'm absolutely moving 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:40.200 to a higher a different plane. 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.720 You'll think of a concert where any specific concert where 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.680 that's a card for you or too many. 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.480 Well many, well many, not not millions, but many. I 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:52.600 think of while there was one here at Big Ears 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.560 actually a few years ago, when I wasn't paying close 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.600 attention to the program, I just ran into the Biju 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.960 Theater to hear what was scheduled in that hour, and 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.960 it was an hour of the music of Alvin Lucier 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:08.080 that had been organized I think by Stephen O'Malley from 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.800 Sun to I was so late, I wasn't quite sure 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:12.400 who put this whole thing together, but it was a 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.360 beautiful hour of Alvin Lucier's music, which is often quiet, 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:21.040 still droning, very slow to unfold, so it's music of duration. 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:23.120 You have to give it some time or else you're 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.200 going to miss everything that's happening. And it was beautiful, 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.160 and then Alvin himself came out on the stage. At 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.480 this point, he's an elderly man who has done incredible 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:35.160 work for a long period of time. I didn't know 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.960 he was there, and so there was that moment. 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.320 Of till he was playing, he wasn't playing his. 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.160 Final well, there was an ensemble of people playing his music, 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.480 and the last piece was Alvin's master work, or the 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.240 piece that people know him for, called I Am Sitting 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:52.880 in a Room, which is a classic of I'm not 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:54.680 going to use the word academic that you're going to 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.080 put out there, because it's not. It is a twentieth 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.840 century experiments say deep deep cut. Okay, it's a little 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:02.080 bit of a deep cup for a little. 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:03.520 Depending on where you're going from from people. 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.160 On the playlist, okay, I got but to hear Alvin 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:12.320 himself sitting in a chair and to begin his piece, 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.159 which is a slowly evolving electronic music piece based on 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:19.320 he says a long sentence of paragraph that then goes 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.959 into a kind of a looping mechanism that begins to 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.400 pull apart like taffy, the sound texture of the words, 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.560 until the words themselves become slowly unrecognizable. And it just 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.720 turns into this cloud of sound. It's a conceptual piece, yes, 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.960 but it's also quite moving I think, over a long, 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.399 slow period of time, and the man himself was in 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.520 this chair doing it. And I didn't know that until 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:46.080 it happened, and I was taken away because of the 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.119 serendipity of the moment. I was not sure that was 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.919 on the program. I didn't know it happened, and I 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:56.760 found myself floating away with joy. Here I am experiencing. 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.680 This was interesting to me by that. First of all, 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.280 you know, it sounds like a very joyful experience. But 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.080 what you point out is that the composer himself is there, 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.600 and so it's a very kind of It's much more 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.320 intimate than perhaps the composer has been dead for two 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.640 hundred years and someone's playing a piece of music. 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:15.640 Right very well. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.720 Is it important then that the author of the piece 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.760 be in the room for it to change the tombre, 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.560 the feeling of the sensation, or can the right musician 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.480 do that having not composed the piece. Because I think 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.119 composition is important to you, I think authorship is important 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:32.320 to you. 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:33.600 But I'd be right in saying that. 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.760 Yes, that's a yes, and because, of course, we have 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:40.080 centuries worth of music now that we all enjoy and 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:42.879 moves us for which we have no direct connection to 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.320 the people who authored that music. Right, So this is 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:48.639 of necessity we have to be able to there's something 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.560 in that music that carries through the ages. Not to 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:53.720 mention the millions of records that we have between us, 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.560 made by artists who we will never encounter, but we 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.840 love that music too. I've never seen the master musicians 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.480 of Jujuoka, but these records are never too far away 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.399 authorship or this question of maybe it's something extra, it's 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.639 not essential, but here's the person who did this remarkable 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:12.840 thing that is always satisfying, isn't it? 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.040 Yes, it is, I think I think that's fair to say. 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:16.760